Edinburgh reimagined to look like Syria for refugee campaign

THE Scottish capital at war has been depicted in re-imagined scenes of how it would look like in Syria.

Charity ActionAid has launched a social media campaign ahead of the Refugees Welcome Here March.

Is this how London would look if in Syria? Picture: Contributed

The international development charity has released images on social media of UK cities re-imagined to look like scenes of war and destruction in Syria in a bid to raise awareness of the plight of refugees fleeing the civil war.

READ MORE: Syrian deal unlikely as US and Russian officials meet for talks Launched ahead of the Refugees Welcome Here March on Saturday, and using layered images of real destruction in Syria, the photographs of Edinburgh, London and Birmingham depict what the major UK cities could look like if the UK had faced the same conflict.

Since the crisis began over five years ago, over half of Syria’s pre-war population — more than 11 million people — have been killed or forced to flee their homes.

In the UK this would be the equivalent of over 30 million people. Mike Noyes, ActionAid UK’s Head of Humanitarian Response said: “Syria’s civil war is the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.

A re-imagined image of Birmingham in Syrian conflict. Picture: Contributed

“Families in Syria are struggling to survive, their homes, hospitals and schools destroyed. Every day is a fight for their lives. “To tackle the current global refugee crisis we need to end wars like Syria and welcome those who fled from conflict.

“We have launched this social media campaign using images from Syria to layer over modern UK cityscapes to imagine what they might look like if they had faced continual conflict over the past five years and raise awareness of what people just like us could be fleeing from.”